


Earth's Oldest Tradition

by Luminosus



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Fluff, M/M, things get emotional yet again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 02:34:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3961165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luminosus/pseuds/Luminosus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snake and Otacon usually sit together on top of the Nomad every time it refuels to watch the sunrise together. Here's stuff that happens during that. Written for Ria.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Earth's Oldest Tradition

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday, dude! luv you.

It was 5am when the Nomad had landed for one of it’s habitual refuelings; a standard procedure. The massive flying fortress docked with a slow, sleepy halt in a clearing deserted enough to be inconspicuous, but not so totally remote that it was fuel-truck inaccessible. There was distinct feeling of peace in absence of the normal, monotonous jet engine drone. Like many of it’s previous touchdowns, the air ship stuck out amongst the landscape; the steel-gray giant rested amid long, rolling tracks of dense grassland that faded upwards into mountain ranges lining the horizon. The sky was still charcoal blue enough to be considered night. Wind flit through the scattered wooded areas, and the limbs of trees (perhaps never-before-seen by civilization) swayed in rhythm, stirring their own sort of natural murmur. It was Argentina, this time. The fuel-truck had already came and went, allowing the natural silence to encompass the two men currently sitting atop the Nomad’s lengthy roof.

It was an affair that Hal and Dave had non-verbally agreed to do together every landing. This, too, was habitual, as for the past twenty odd times the same events would occur. 

Dave brought a pack of cigarettes - the unfiltered kind - the kind Hal didn’t like him lighting around Sunny. They were special. Hal would bring The Blanket - the fleece Dragon Ball Z blanket that was set aside for this special occasion. The thing was big enough to make a tent out of, and the Goku adorning it was practically life sized, but besides that, it wasn’t _actually all that special_ , aside from being The Blanket. It was _especially ugly,_ if anything, which was most likely the only detail keeping Hal and Dave from using it for any other circumstance involving a need for blanketing. Now, though, it was tradition; just as much as watching the sky change together was. They would sit together like this, in the same situation, with the same substance, in the same silence until the sun would surface. Then the partners would, in tandem, fall back into the sky, and the cycle repeated.

With the southern wind whipping up irregularly, Snake had resolved to not smoke this time - and Hal had resolved to wrap The Blanket around Snake and himself, the thin but plentiful material transferring the warmth between them. Snake wore what he’d been wearing before waking up for the custom - a tank top and boxers. Hal shifted closer to the solider, pajama pants and t-shirt not quite cutting it this morning. By that point, the scientist was practically on top of Dave - the usual. Hal would act surprised, mumble something like a breathy apology, but Dave knew he wasn’t _really_ sorry about it. That’s how Hal asked to be held - and Dave complied.

Like the blanket, David enveloped the man sitting on his lap completely. Hal’s eyes slid shut, sighing inwardly in blissful content. Next came his tired head lolling back against Dave’s shoulder, which meant something along the lines of wanting a kiss - and Dave complied, leaning forward to press his lips against Hal’s forehead, but not before delicately brushing the dusty brown hair that framed his face out of his way. A hand slipped onto Hal’s thigh - Dave’s request to hold Hal’s - and Hal complied. The little exchanges were voiceless, but spoke for themselves. A simple touch between the two let one know what the other was thinking, what the other wanted, all seamless and wordless.

The two would stay there, immobile and silent, for ten minutes before either of them said anything.

“Hal.” David’s words came so warmly and gently against the other’s neck that it could have been mistaken for the breeze. Nevertheless, Hal roused himself to the call with a yawn, obvious by his dazed expression that he’d been falling asleep. He couldn’t help it, sometimes. For almost a decade, he’d been sleeping beside David - feeling his breath, laying against him, and hearing his heartbeat were familiarly relaxing - and it was so warm and inviting and _finally quiet_ that, well, who wouldn’t have started to drift off?

“If you fall asleep, you’re going to miss it.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Hal mused, blinking a few times before propping himself up in David’s lap. “Sleep last night?” The solider questioned, though both knew the answer - _not with Sunny’s nightmares._ It seemed that, out of all the things that Hal had tried to meticulously prevent in her life - difficulty, neglect, and loss - those terrors were unavoidable. He’d stayed in her room that night, by her bed, promising tirelessly that she’d be okay, that it was safe to sleep, that the Nomad wasn’t crashing and that Uncle Snake was okay and that he loved her. The whole _parent_ thing was incredibly draining, and it showed. In the moment between the question and anticipated answer, Hal’s eyes had rolled shut again, as if the world around him had willed him back to sleep. Snake, in turn, decided it was better to just let him rest.

He was incredibly proud of his partner. Hal had changed tremendously over the years - they both had - but seeing a crying, helpless, and confused captive become a devoted father and world class hacker was indescribable. It was more than that. Back in Alaska, him waking up in the middle of the night to cry in the back closet in fear that David would hear him (“Sorry I woke you, I’m sorry.”), his fits of uncontrollable rage that he’d apologize endlessly for (“I’m sorry, Snake, I’m so sorry, I can’t control that, I feel so _helpless."_ ), the way he looked at himself in the mirror with such disgust that he’d almost broken it (“Good thing I’m not strong like you, I guess.”) - they changed. He changed.

David knew the feelings were still there, of course they were - his were, too. But now, instead of staring, wet-eyed at each other from crying in confusion, the two favored talking things out rather than ignoring them. They had to. It was more than the world that needed them. Sunny needed them, and they needed each other.

It was time.

All at once the sun had cracked over the mountain tops, igniting the sky. The world began to change around them - the silence had lifted. Birds began to call, and the wind seemed to hum with newer, livelier intentions. Out all the sunrises they’d seen together, this was going to be one of the better ones - even with Hal dozed off in David’s arms. In the end, Hal’s eyes didn’t necessarily need to be open - he just needed to be there.

And like that, David seized the day as it was, to crane his neck down and plant kisses along Hal’s, his hands finding their way round the blanket to lock up with his. The engineer, in all of his exhaustion, in David’s arms, managed to smile genuinely at the gesture before looking up at David, the new sunlight casting silvers mixed with browns across his head.

“Hey.”

“Yeah?” 

“I love you. Thanks for staying with me.”

And even after all those years - after Moses, after Tanker, after Big Shell - it still made David’s heart stop every time he touched him, every time he kissed him, and every “I love you” Hal had ever spoke. 

“You too.”

The world would resume, again.


End file.
